During Amazon Prime Day, Spanish union calls for strike

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Jennifer Jolly, Special for USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — A Spanish union is asking Amazon shoppers to avoid the online store during Prime Day in support of its demands for better working conditions at the company’s fulfillment centers in Spain.

The Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) union has called for close to 1,000 Amazon workers to strike from Monday through Wednesday at Amazon's San Fernando fulfillment center near Madrid. It is Amazon's second largest fulfillment center in Spain after the one near Barcelona.

The strike is set during Amazon’s Prime Day 36-hour sale, which begins at 3 pm ET on Monday and runs through the end of Tuesday.

The union says on its Facebook page that it is fighting pay cuts and for better working conditions and restrictions on time off. CCOO has representatives at two of Amazon's 15 logistics centers in Spain.

On its Facebook page, the union asks Amazon customers to boycott the site during the strike, with the message, “With no agreement, there is no Prime Day. Thanks for your support.”

There have been some calls on Twitter for the boycott to extend across Europe.

Amazon workers in Spain have called for a transnational strike to protest working conditions. You can support them by not buying from Amazon or visiting the site this week #AmazonStrikepic.twitter.com/kbrMlRSSha

Workers at the Madrid facility walked off the job for two days in March as well, striking for better wages and overtime benefits. The CCOO said 98 percent of workers stopped working during that strike.

The logistics centers are not unionized in the American sense of the word that a majority of their workers have voted to join a union and to have the union represent them.

A sign posted by members of the CCOO union in Spain calling for a strike against Amazon at its fulfillment center near Madrid over wages and labor conditions. The sign reads #HuelgaAmazon, or #AmazonStrike(Photo: CCOO, Spain)

Under Spanish law, any union with representation within a company can call a strike, as long as it announces the strike at least five days in advance and a mediation process has already happened.